


Dog on the Run

by stephantom



Series: Red and Blue [2]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ethical Dilemmas, Highly Implausible Camping Trip, Hostage Situations, M/M, Toulon Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2017-12-12 04:36:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/807286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephantom/pseuds/stephantom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When a man dressed by the state pursues a man in rags, it is in order to make of him also a man dressed by the state. The difference of color is the sole question. To be dressed in blue is glorious; to be dressed in red is undesirable."<br/>-- Victor Hugo, <i>Les Misérables</i>, Volume V, Book Third, Chapter III</p><p>During one of his attempted escapes from Toulon, Valjean crosses paths with a certain young guard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Since well before sunrise, Valjean has been running, pushing deeper into the woods. Every rustling of branches makes him jump; the shadow of a bird flying overhead causes his feet to falter, his blood to race. This kind of freedom, he remembers now, tastes of nothing so much as fear. Even so, given the same chance, he would run again. His life consists of pushing up against walls of a cage; when a wall yields, he is compelled to push through to the other side, no matter where it might lead him.

The river is a godsend. He splashes the cool water against his sun-beaten face, drinks his fill, and for a moment almost forgets to be afraid. He lets himself pretend instead that he is just a man like any other, enjoying a well-earned reprieve from a hard day of work. Kneeling at the edge of the river, he bows his head and breathes in deep.

Somewhere at his back, a man's voice cries, “You, there!” and in a heartbeat, the fantasy is shattered.

Valjean swallows back the taste of bile; without getting to his feet, he turns, slowly, to face the newcomer. 

It is one of the younger guards; Valjean recognizes him only vaguely, but the guard seems to know Valjean for what he is, despite the borrowed civilian clothes. He meets Valjean's eyes coolly. 

“24601." He recites the number confidently. Tucked into his belt, in place of the usual cudgel, a pistol. "I trust you have enjoyed exploring the countryside," the guard comments, "but it's time to get you back now.”

Valjean’s hands are shaking; he curls them into fists to still them and starts to stand.

“Stay where you are!"

Valjean flinches at the commanding tone and sinks back to the ground, ducking his head in shame. Has he come so far, only to now be dragged back, again? To be greeted by the lash and an extra piling of years to his sentence? He hears the jangling of chain as the guard reaches into his rucksack and draws forth a pair of shackles. 

What would this man do, Valjean wonders, glancing furtively at the woods surrounding them, if he were to make a break for it now? The gun at the guard's hip glints in the sunlight, pulling Valjean's gaze back. Would this guard really use it? He might not; and even were he to shoot, he might miss, if sufficiently surprised. But the noise of it! What if more guards are about, ready to come running? Valjean drags his teeth across his lip, frozen in indecision.

"Don't try it." 

Valjean looks up again at the guard, who is watching him now with narrowed eyes and grim sort of smirk.

What other choice does he have?

“Please,” he croaks. He pushes himself to his feet again, stumbling a little. 

"Hey!" The guard grips his gun. "I said stay where you are!"

“Wait," Valjean pleads, gesturing uselessly, taking a few halting steps forward. "Don't, don't shoot.”

“It is my intention to bring you in unharmed, but you must follow—” but Valjean, hardly aware of what he is doing, shakes his head and starts forward again. He won't go back. "No further!" the guard barks. He raises the gun. But there is a sudden look of—something—some apprehension, maybe, in his eyes, and this sparks in Valjean a flare of hope so wild it might in truth be called hopelessness. Like a thing compelled, like a tightly coiled spring set free, Valjean hurls himself at the guard.

The guard’s finger closes on the trigger of the gun—producing nothing more than a harmless _click._

A misfire.

In the next instant, Valjean collides with the guard, tackling his would-be captor to the ground. Some part of him realizes distantly, numbly, looking down at the uniformed man beneath him with a vague and growing horror, that in attacking a guard like this, he has committed a capital offense. They will kill him for this, if they catch him.

The guard struggles to get out from under him, twisting and thrashing and clawing. There is a loud crack as he succeeds in delivering a blow to Valjean’s jaw with the butt of his pistol. Valjean grimaces, catches the guard’s wrists and forces them down to lie flat at his sides, trapping them there beneath his knees.

The gun is tossed a safe distance away, but the guard does not yield; he draws his legs up, kicking and digging his knees into Valjean’s back. He manages to press one of his heavy boots against the side of Valjean’s neck before Valjean shoves the leg away and moves so that he is stretched out flush against the guard, pinning him to the ground, limb for limb.

The guard lets out a strangled growl and bucks his hips, uselessly—Valjean would laugh if his heart were not still racing with fear—then he deflates, his expression pained, face red from exertion, or shame, and turns his head stiffly, away from Valjean's scrutiny. They remain that way for a spell, chests heaving with breaths that gradually begin to even out.

Overhead, a gentle breeze stirs some branches. Valjean permits himself to relax, just a little, stretching marginally, shifting his weight. The guard inhales then: a sharp, audible hiss. Belatedly, Valjean registers the hardness pressing up against his stomach. It is so unexpected that for a moment he does not even understand; he stares down at the guard, whose face is still turned away from him, in a haze of disbelieving confusion. The guard's eyes, when they finally meet Valjean's, burn with resentment and a furious resolve. The man opens his mouth, draws a deep breath—

Suddenly gleaning the man's intention, Valjean claps a hand over guard’s mouth and prays no one is close enough to hear the muffled cry for help. A moment later, he holds back a cry of his own as the other man bites down on the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger. When he continues shouting into his hand, Valjean acts on the first thought that comes to him: he hauls the man roughly to the edge of the river and shoves his head underwater.

It is blessedly quiet again.

But what if someone sees?

Valjean glances wildly in all directions, one hand keeping the guard’s arms in place behind his back, the other holding his head down. If someone comes now and finds him like this! If he was not bound for the firing squad before, he surely is now. Damned, he is damned, and too far in to go back!

The guard pushes up against his hand in violent spasms. He has caught a bit of Valjean’s sleeve between two fingertips, which he clings to weakly. Valjean, whose hands have begun to shake again, silently counts out another five beats, and eases up.

The guard emerges sputtering and gasping. “Keep quiet,” Valjean mutters against his ear, “or I’ll do it again.” The guard shudders under his hand.

Valjean cannot afford to stay here a moment longer—but what to do with the guard? He is still weak and frightened; Valjean might lose him if he makes a run for it now. But then, this man will seek out the others, who surely cannot be far. Even if Valjean leaves him unconscious, they will find him in time; he will show them where their convict was last seen—he will tell them what Valjean has done. He'll be condemned.

Valjean swallows as the neatest solution slides forward in his mind: _kill him._ Kill him and roll his body off the bank; send it down the stream.

He has never felt there to be a killer in him before. He is not innocent, he knows, but he has maintained all these years that the sentence incurred was disproportionate to the crime, was _unjust_. He has been wronged, and terribly. But terribly enough to justify ending this young man’s life? And he _is_ young. Looking at him now, this close and at his mercy, Valjean feels he is seeing him for the first time: a boy, a few years younger than Valjean had been when he was convicted. He has never thought to guess at a guard’s age before—what was a guard to him but commands and beatings and a cold bowl of beans at mealtime?

The boy’s eyes are shut. He takes deep, shaky breaths, as water drips slowly from the ends of his hair. There are droplets caught in his eyelashes.

Yet this guard, young though he may be, did not hesitate when it came to killing Valjean. That flash of something in his eyes meant nothing; he was reluctant to shoot, perhaps, but not unwilling. He'd have killed Valjean on the spot, if his gun had not misfired. It is only through chance that Valjean is still alive now.

Well, let it be the same with me, thinks Valjean. If it comes to it, I’ll kill him.

\- - 

They travel by river, using a log Valjean finds on the bank to keep afloat. He has shackled the guard with his own shackles and gagged him with a strip of fabric torn from his shirt. “Hold tight,” he instructs, arranging the guard’s arms over the log, “and keep your feet up.”

As the current picks up, it becomes a challenge to keep straight and clear of eddies, but seeing the swiftness with which the river carries them away, Valjean feels his chest swell with some strange and desperate emotion. By the time the stars come out and the shadows grow long around them, they have traveled miles downstream. The river is wider now, and calm. Beside him, his hostage rests his head against the log and closes his eyes; his teeth chatter. Seeing this, Valjean feels the chill himself. He guides them toward the bank.

Once ashore, Valjean confiscates the guard’s bag and finds himself in the possession of a modest sum of money, a small knife, a canteen, and a bit of soggy cheese and bread—he bites into this last ravenously. The guard looks on, expressionless. Valjean feels a twinge of guilt, followed quickly by a flare of anger. Why should he feel guilty? Why should he not eat? It has been longer for him since his last meal, and he has done all the work of pushing and steering them along in the water.

But he will not starve his hostage; it would only slow him down, after all. Grudgingly, he tears off a small hunk of the bread for the boy.

“You’ll keep quiet?” he says, bringing his hands to the gag. “No more shouting?”

The young man hesitates, then nods. Valjean removes the gag and presses the bread into his hands.

The guard takes his time with the meager portion, biting off small pieces which he pushes around in his mouth slowly before swallowing. After a while, he asks, “Am I allowed to speak?”

Valjean considers. “What would you say?”

“That this is madness.”

Valjean takes a bite of cheese. "That so?" he says with great disinterest.

“Have you any idea what they’ll do to you when they find us? When they hear how you have assaulted and kidnapped a prison guard?” He shakes his head, repeating again, under his breath, “madness.”

Valjean grunts in response and tucks what remains of the food back into the bag. “We’ll have to make this last.”

“It was only meant to serve as one man’s lunch.”

"Well," Valjean sighs. “We will find something else tomorrow.”

“And if we don’t? Are you prepared to starve us both rather than go back where you belong?”

Go back, Valjean thinks. He cannot go back—the prospect was hideous before; it is unthinkable now. For all that his life is a parade of misery, he is not yet ready to die. Valjean scrubs his hands over his face and then drops them to his sides, straightening. He cannot let himself think on that; he will be lost if he does. “We’re far from starving, boy,” he says. “Believe me. I’ve known starving.”

“So have I,” the boy says. “I’m not eager to know it again.”

Valjean’s clothes are waterlogged and heavy, clinging to him uncomfortably. He stands and peels off his shirt.

“I won't—” the guard begins, and is seized with a sudden fit of coughing. Unconcerned, Valjean twists the sodden shirt in his hand, wringing out river water. When he has recovered himself, the guard tries again. “I won’t be called ‘boy’ by you.”

“What should I call you then?” asks Valjean, slinging the damp shirt over his shoulders.

“You should call me ‘sir.'" The look Valjean gives at that suggestion must be clear for Javert lets it go immediately, saying instead, “Javert, at least.”

“Javert?” Valjean repeats it like it is a foul word. “What’s that?”

“My name,” the boy—Javert, apparently—grinds out.

“And why should I call you by it? When I am only a number—”

“Jean Valjean,” says the guard.

Valjean is too surprised to know how to respond; he stands blinking a moment, then tries to pretend as if nothing extraordinary has happened. He pulls an arm back behind his head in a stretch, feeling his muscles strain. He hears the guard add, "It is not a difficult name to remember," and nods, distantly, the sound of it, Jean Valjean, echoing in his mind like a word from a language he has not heard or spoken in years.

It seems that Javert is unable to stay quiet long. “What are you going to do?” he asks, breaking the silence. "What's your plan?" Valjean ignores him, continuing his stretches until he feels warm and loose. After a while, he leans back against a boulder and looks out at the river. In a quiet, toneless voice, he finally answers: "I am going to run until I can’t run anymore.”

Javert stares. “That is not a plan.”

Valjean shrugs.

“You’re a stupid brute, aren’t you?” says Javert. Valjean says nothing; such insults lost their sting years ago. Javert goes on: “No plan, no food, probably no idea where we are, and a hostage on your hands. You realize, you’re worth a hundred francs out here? There will be folks about looking for that bounty. What do you think this will achieve? What mad hope—?”

“I don't hope anything,” says Valjean. He tilts his face up toward the sky, where the first stars of the evening are just visible against the edge of the fading sunset. The rocky surface at his back too like the walls of the prison, and yet, there is a fresh, earthy scent here that is new and welcome; when he shuts his eyes, the hush of the river fills his ears.

When he opens his eyes again, Javert is watching him, his expression curiously intent; he looks away before Valjean can begin to decipher it. Valjean scowls, suspicious. He takes up the boy's rucksack again and, pulling out a pair of leg-irons, approaches him. 

“Boots off,” he says. Javert blinks and looks down at his feet; slowly, he pulls off his boots and turns a wary look to Valjean.

“Don’t try anything foolish tonight,” Valjean says, crouching to close an iron cuff around one of the boy's bare ankles. “I will hear you, and you will regret it.” He has learned well how to intimidate. He sits back, looking his hostage over: a Toulon guard, humbled and shackled and at his mercy. It is a cold sort of comfort, and Valjean wishes he could take more pleasure in the sight. Perhaps he has lost the capacity for pleasure. Or perhaps he needs to sleep.

Unfortunately, sleep means leaving Javert unattended and there is nothing to chain Javert to out here. Valjean must use himself then. With a grimace, he cuffs his own ankle, the same one that's been dragging a chain for more than six years now. Out of the prison and still no choice but to wear chains. He is startled from his thoughts when Javert speaks up again.

“What’s stopping you?” he asks. The boy's voice is calm, quiet. Valjean looks at him in confusion. Stopping him from what? “All this trouble," says Javert. "Why not just kill me?” 

For a moment, Valjean can only gape at him. "What?"

“Do you think that I may turn a blind eye to what you have done?” Javert shakes his head solemnly and says, “No. There is no bribe in the world that could make me cover up a crime.”

Valjean stares hard at the ground and breathes in slowly. The guard's words should not come as a shock, he tells himself. He did not expect a bargain. Certainly not pity. But to hear the idea pronounced impossible, so soon, with such finality...

Javert is still talking. “In time,” he is saying, “you will decide that your best chance is to get rid of me. If you’re going to do it, I—” and here he pauses, taking a deep breath himself. “I would prefer you be done with it now.”

Valjean returns his gaze to Javert. Surely he cannot really mean this; it is a bluff—but to what end? For a moment, Valjean simply stares at him; then, and he is not sure what makes him do it—a morbid curiosity, or, perhaps, something darker—he gets up on his knees and brings his hands to rest at the base of Javert’s neck, letting him feel the latent power there. He could strangle the life out of him slowly. He could snap the boy's neck.

Javert lifts his chin high. Perhaps he _does_ mean it. Beneath Valjean’s fingertips, his pulse races; his eyes, though, are alight with a righteous defiance, confident, expectant. He expects this; he expects murder from prisoner 24601. Expects and faces unflinchingly. Valjean touches a thumb to the boy's jaw, entranced and, simultaneously, _outraged_. What right has this man, this jailer, to look so noble?

Valjean lets his hands fall to his sides.

“You think I’m an animal," he says, voice rough. He draws a shaky breath. “I’m not.”

He gets up and moves away gracelessly, unnerved and angry, snatching the guard’s bag and stretching out as far away from his hostage as he can get, which, as they are chained together at the ankle, is not very far at all. The ground beneath his head is damp and mossy; it is the softest bed he’s known in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for [the kinkmeme](http://makinghugospin.livejournal.com/11667.html?thread=1552787#t1552787) prompt: "Valjean takes a young(ish) Javert hostage in Toulon."
> 
> Many, many thanks to Carmarthen for beta-ing early chapters (1-3)! Thanks as well to to Prudencepaccard for being extremely helpful and generous with her [amazing Toulon knowledge!](http://prudencepaccard.tumblr.com/tagged/Toulon-asks) (Not that everything in this fic is entirely accurate by any means - but I tried.)


	2. Chapter 2

Valjean wakes in the dark to the howling of wolves. He takes several ragged, shivering breaths, cold and still half-dreaming, unsure where he is. Over the sound of rushing water, he can hear someone breathing, somewhere close by. Blindly, clumsily, he moves toward the sound; reaching out, he finds a shoulder, warm and solid.

“What are you doing?” 

A man’s voice.

“S'cold,” Valjean slurs, dropping down beside the man. He snakes an arm under the man’s coat, draped over him like a blanket. The man—the man is his hostage. Yes. Javert. And he, Valjean, has escaped from Toulon. He has _escaped_.

He pulls Javert close.

“Valjean!”

“Cold,” he repeats, voice falling to a whisper. Javert shudders. The nape of his neck is warm against Valjean’s nose.

He is very nearly asleep again, when, without warning, a memory from only hours ago springs forth in his mind—Javert trapped under him, hard, flushed, the breathy sound he made when Valjean shifted against him—and suddenly Valjean finds himself very awake and very aware that the two of them are pressed together again, huddled beneath the great coat of Javert's uniform.

He swallows uncomfortably—the sound seems oddly loud in the darkness—then, carefully, extricates himself and gets up. He has a shirt somewhere—it must have dried by now. After a bit of fruitless searching—he can't go far, tethered as he is to Javert by the chain at his ankle—he gives up and lies down again, facing away from his hostage, taking care to leave some space between them. He can spend the night like this; it is a cold night for Toulon, even this late in autumn, but it is not unbearable. He curls up tightly on himself and shuts his eyes, trying not to wonder what thoughts might have run through the boy's head when Valjean touched his shoulder.

The cold is not unbearable, but he shivers all the same, and relief, warmth, is scarcely more than a hairsbreadth away. Why should the boy's response to their scuffle trouble him? Why should he care? Javert is young and such things can happen without significance.

Slowly, Valjean inches back, slipping under Javert’s coat, into that cave of warmth, until their backs touch. All his muscles relax; he shuts his eyes again, and lets his mouth fall open, feeling Javert's back expand and contract against his own, with the steady rhythm of sleep.

\- -

Valjean blinks against sunlight, gradually becoming aware that he is awake, and that morning has come, hailed by a chorus of birds. He spends a while simply listening to this impossible sound, so different from the sounds of the day starting in prison. The guards would be coming around by now, eager to strike at those who went too slow or looked suspicious. He sits up, moving immediately to free himself from the chain at his ankle. It is an immeasurable relief to pull the iron away and run his hands over his leg.

There is not much left of the food Javert has brought along. Valjean takes the canteen from Javert's knapsack, tucking the rest of its contents away, and heads for the riverbank. At least they will not be thirsty. He hears a noise behind him and glances over his shoulder to find the young man approaching, boots and coat in hand. Valjean gives an awkward nod. 

“We’ll save what’s left of the bread for later," he tells him, turning back toward the river. "Or until we find something else to eat.”

“Are you hoping you’ll find someplace to rob? You’ll be caught, you know.”

Valjean gives a non-committal grunt. In truth, he hasn't thought that far yet; but he suspects Javert is right: they would catch him, if he tried. After all, he is only a convicted thief—not a good one.

Javert squats beside him, cupping his palms for a drink; the chain dangling between his wrist clinks quietly.

The urge to explain, to make himself seen and understood, seizes Valjean suddenly, as it will sometimes. All the time, in the beginning—rarely now. But out here, in the wilderness, with just this one man, this de-clawed enemy, the feeling takes on a renewed urgency. He lays a hand on Javert’s shoulder, ignoring the surprised little jerk he gives. "I only ever tried it the once,” he says. “A loaf of bread. For my family. We were starving, my sister and—”

“I don’t want to hear your story.”

“Seven children—”

“Everyone has a story. Traitors, thieves, murderers—”

Valjean lets go of him. “Prison guards?”

Javert scoffs. “I have no need of a story.”

Valjean's momentary fit of hope drains, replaced with a bitter, familiar disappointment. He turns away from the man with a scowl. “I think you have.” The boy makes a dismissive sound and sits back, seemingly unperturbed, grabbing one of his boots.

Inside his wooden, prison-issue shoes, Valjean flexes his feet enviously. "Those are nice," he observes.

Javert freezes, one foot halfway into a boot.

"Where did you get them?"

"I bought them.” Javert’s eyes flit up to meet Valjean’s, and Valjean recognizes the fierce, doomed hostility in them well. “I know that must seem strange to you.”

“I told you," says Valjean. "I only stole the once.”

“You are about to steal now.”

“Am I?” Valjean asks hollowly. “Well.” He nods at the boot on Javert’s foot. “Bought them with money you made working in prisons? Carrying a big stick around?”

“I got them ages ago,” Javert says tightly, “when I was in the army."

Valjean blinks. "Well," he says again. Why should he care where this guard came from or who he was before Toulon? It is perfectly clear that _Javert_ cares nothing who _Valjean_ was. In Javert's eyes, in the world's eyes, he is a thief. He can only ever be a thief.

Not knowing when he reached his decision, only that he _has_ decided, and sensing somehow that this is the way it _must_ be, Valjean raises his hand slowly, and extends it toward Javert, palm turned upward in an unmistakable demand. 

Javert trembles with suppressed rage—Valjean recognizes that look too—but he turns the boots over to Valjean. His hands curl into fists once he's let go. The leather soles are worn and Valjean’s toes do not quite reach the tips, but they are nonetheless an improvement, and he has a long way to walk yet.

\- -

They come across a little waterfall that spills into the river, down a steep, rocky slope. Valjean cranes his neck, squinting through the glare of the midday sun, and decides to abandon the river and follow this new path instead: upstream, into the mountains.

He scales the rocks with ease—climbing has always come naturally to him—but does not get far before it becomes clear that his hostage, wrists and ankles still chained, is struggling, casting about for handholds and footholds within his constrained reach. Valjean thinks it should amuse him; instead he feels only impatience and the tired, distant sort of pity the sight of a new prisoner sometimes stirs in him. As he watches, Javert stretches his arms up and jumps, catching hold of a ledge; his feet scrabble for purchase, and then both of the low-backed sabots slip off, tumbling downward, into the river.

Cursing under his breath, Valjean clambers back to Javert. “Here, let me—”

Javert grits his teeth and pulls himself up another few inches.

“I am sure there is an easier way up,” Valjean tries, but the boy climbs on doggedly, leaving Valjean to trail behind him like a shadow, keeping close, should he slip. 

When they finally reach level ground, it is a relief to them both. They sit catching their breath, looking down over the river and the wooded hills, stretching out for miles. A thin column of smoke rises from a nearby mountainside, close enough to send a terrible jolt of fear through Valjean. They have to keep moving, that's all. He pushes himself to his feet and motions for Javert to follow. Javert shakes his head, closing his eyes briefly; a bead of sweat rolls down the side of his face. But he gets up, wordlessly, and falls into step at Valjean’s side.

\- -

“Here.”

“Where did you get that?”

Valjean waves the apple in question impatiently. Javert does not budge, not even when Valjean takes a loud, sloppy bite himself. “A tree,” he says around a mouthful.

“A tree where? On someone’s property?”

Valjean rolls his eyes. “A wild tree.” He lets the apple fall; it rolls across the ground, coming to a stop at Javert’s bare feet. It is indeed wild—a scrawny, sour little thing. 

Retrieving from his pocket a second apple for himself, Valjean sits back against a tree trunk. He listens to the birds as he eats, noting the various calls, some familiar, some new. Overhead, a pair of squirrels chatter excitedly, chasing each other up and down, shaking a series of branches. Comforting, simple sounds that once were commonplace. He has missed them for years without knowing; it is hard to miss what one has forgotten. If he goes back to prison now, he wonders, will he forget again? He tosses the finished apple core away. A collared dove coos, a quiet, mournful sound. He supposes he will not have enough time to forget.

The crunch of an apple draws him from his reverie; his hostage has finally deigned to eat. Valjean watches him, grateful for the distraction. The boy chews each bite slowly, seriously, and gnaws at the core until almost nothing is left of it but the seeds. 

Valjean recalls something Javert said the night before; suddenly curious, he asks, “When were you starving?”

Javert wipes a sleeve over his chin where a line of juice has trickled down. He does not answer, nor does he not ask for a second, though Valjean knows he must be hungry still.

“Javert.” Hearing his name, sharp on Valean's tongue, the boy looks up, just in time to catch the apple Valjean tosses him. He blinks at it with an expression of vague alarm. After a moment, he says, “My father was a man like you."

“A thief?”

“A galley-slave. I only knew him after I’d grown some, and only for a short while at that. We—didn’t get on.” He bites into the apple, his face twisting as though the taste is bitter to him.

The son of a convict. Valjean frowns, unsure what to make of this news.

“And your mother?”

Javert swallows. “Died years ago. She was a poor wretch too. Always in and out of jails.” He meets Valjean’s eyes, chin raised slightly. “In fact, that’s where I was born.”

It strikes Valjean that there is in this admission something profoundly vulnerable, and at the same time, proud: born in a jail. He tries to imagine a young mother, cradling a babe in a prison cell, humming softly. Without conscious choice, it is his sister’s face he pictures, her voice he hears; the cell in his mind is crowded and Valjean thinks of six more little beings. He recalls, through a haze, a child’s voice reciting a rhyme and tiny hands tugging at his— _Uncle Jean, listen!_

“Perhaps,” Valjean says quietly, “they broke the law because they were desperate to feed and clothe you. Perhaps they had nowhere else to turn.”

Javert’s eyes flash; his lips curl with disdain. “Of course. You would blame me for my parents’ failings. Just as you blame your children for yours.”

“I—”

“You say you did what you did for them, but tell me, how have you helped them? How has anything you’ve done helped them?”

Valjean’s throat is tight. He cannot speak.

“The truth is that you didn’t think about them at all, not when you stole that bread, not when you ran, not when you assaulted a prison guard—everything you’ve done, you’ve done because that’s your nature: spiteful, thoughtless brutality.”

Valjean rises, head thrumming with anger.

Javert watches his approach, fear and satisfaction warring on his face. “And now you will beat a man simply for speaking the truth.”

“Truth,” Valjean spits. “You accuse me of spite and brutality—you, who would condemn your own parents for being poor!” He knocks the apple out of Javert’s hand. “They could have saved themselves the trouble and drowned you at birth.”

Javert’s mouth snaps shut.

“Get up, it’s time we kept moving.” He seizes Javert by the shoulder and pulls him to his feet. “Not another word from you.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody stop what you're doing and check out [this great fanart](http://stephantom.tumblr.com/post/54593927262/ruberoidz-gah-am-i-productive-today-im) that apfelstrudelz made of Javert in this! (He also has another illustration of them close to the ages they are in this fic, [here](http://stephantom.tumblr.com/post/50660575689/ruberoidz-young-valjean-and-javert)).

They have walked all afternoon and evening, and have covered a good deal of ground, even gathering a few more wild fruits along the way, but their pace has slowed significantly in the last hour and Valjean’s patience is thinning. “You’re lagging, boy!” he shouts, shoving Javert between the shoulder blades. Javert stumbles forward. Valjean frowns, looking Javert’s lanky form over, watching the way he hobbles and steps gingerly around the rocks and brambles. His feet are dark with caked dirt.

“Javert,” says Valjean. Javert throws him a weary glance over his shoulder. “Hold, a moment.” Valjean gestures at the ground between them. “Here, sit down.” When Javert does, Valjean crouches in front of him to get a better look at his feet. They are badly hurt—what Valjean thought to be dirt is also blood—the soft soles are cut up from rocks and thorns, his toes are bruised. 

“You might have said something,” Valjean mutters, grimacing. Javert stares past him. There is defiance in that studied blankness, which Valjean finds both admirable and immensely irritating.

If Javert had told Valjean he was hurting earlier, before it had gotten quite so bad—well, Valjean can imagine it: he would want to laugh in the boy’s face, to strike him, as a guard would, and remind him that convicts like Valjean suffer worse, every day, for years, and are never shown sympathy, but are punished for complaining.

Perhaps Javert is right to keep silent.

Letting out a long, quiet exhalation, Valjean sits back on his heels, watching Javert thoughtfully, as if the boy might suddenly provide an answer to some question Valjean cannot put into words. But Javert does not look at him, and after a moment, Valjean turns away, out toward the mountain stream where the red-streaked sky is reflected. 

"Getting dark," he says. "We might as well stop now for the night.”

They find a nearby thicket, not quite shelter enough to hide them from view completely should someone wander by, but it will do well enough in the dark. Valjean spreads Javert’s coat out on the ground to serve as a bed and sits, taking a long drink from the canteen. With a glance up at Javert, he thumps the ground beside him. Javert sits. Valjean passes the canteen without a word.

It is time for them to sleep, which means it is time for Valjean to don a chain once more. He removes the boots from his feet and rubs his left ankle slowly. It is slightly scarred where the chain has chafed for years. He removes one of the cuffs from Javert’s legs and fastens it to his own. There; it is done. He slips the key into his pocket.

His gaze falls to the bare feet of his hostage again. The sight of them—the sickening mottle of colors—makes Valjean’s insides twist with shame. It is not an unfamiliar feeling; he ignores it, as he ignores exhaustion and hunger. 

The boots he stole from the boy lie haphazardly between them, near Valjean’s feet. Valjean nudges them aside, out of Javert’s reach. To concede them now would be impossible—the thought of it fills him with irrational anger—but something must be done; if Javert goes on hopping and hobbling, it will slow Valjean down too much. Abruptly coming to a decision, he reaches into the knapsack for Javert’s knife.

Javert eyes Valjean nervously over the canteen. “What are you doing?”

“Hold still,” says Valjean. He takes one of Javert’s sleeves and before Javert can pull away, nicks the edge of it with the knife, starting a tear in the tough material. He lays the knife aside, tears off a few long strips of fabric, and shuffles forward to kneel in front of Javert. “Lift your foot." 

Stunned, Javert obeys, allowing Valjean to slip a steadying hand around his ankle, and with the other hand, begin carefully brushing the dirt away. Valjean takes his time, splashing water from the canteen over the nastier scrapes, ignoring the way Javert tenses and balls his fists against the ground. Spying a splinter, he leans in close to study it before plying it out, distantly aware of Javert's scrutinizing eyes on him all the while.

When he has washed both feet clean and wrapped them in the worn cloth of Javert’s shirt, he pauses, one foot still cradled between his hands. Javert meets his gaze and Valjean can see his throat bob as he swallows; there is a wary, hunted look to him that Valjean is not sure he understands. He sets Javert’s foot down lightly. “That should help some,” he says.

He slips the knife back into the knapsack, and lying down on the dark blue coat spread over the ground, tucks the knapsack beneath his head. His leg is constrained uncomfortably by the chain attaching him to Javert, who has not moved. Valjean thumps the space at his side. A moment later he feels Javert settle in beside him, shoulder to shoulder. The chirping of frogs drifts up from the stream. Valjean finds that he is more tired than he realized; his eyelids are heavy, his thoughts senseless and hard to hold, wisps of smoke that trail away into nothing.

\- -

A sudden chill, an absence where there was warmth before, causes Valjean to stir in his sleep. Eyes still shut, he reaches an arm behind him; perplexed by the cold air he finds, he opens his eyes. It is not quite dawn. The world is still and quiet, save for the rustling behind him. 

Valjean sits up just as Javert succeeds in unshackling his leg—he must have picked Valjean’s pocket for the key. Javert freezes; their eyes lock. Then wildly, Javert pushes himself to his feet. Valjean springs for him, catching an ankle, and Javert falls to the ground. Valjean pulls him back. Closing vice-like fingers around his shoulders, he lifts him up off the ground, swings him back to the makeshift bed and lays him flat against it, face down.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Valjean whispers between harsh breaths, hovering on all fours over his captive. “Nowhere, you’re going nowhere.” He bends his arms, shifting some of his weight onto Javert. “You’re staying right here.”

“This is what you want me for, isn’t it?” Javert whispers back. “This is the real reason you’ve kept me around.”

At first, Valjean doesn't understand; then he freezes in horror. He should move away. He should get off of Javert.

“I know what you all get up to.” Javert cranes his neck, looking over his shoulder at Valjean, his face little more than a shadow in the early dawn light. “Go on, then,” he says. “Show me how it is.”

Valjean opens his mouth; after several seconds of paralysis, a few words find their way out. “Javert, that’s not—I don’t—” A swell of laughter bubbles up in him absurdly; with effort, he clamps down on the impulse and lets out a shaky breath instead. He moves off of Javert.

Javert props himself up on an elbow, and stares. Valjean cannot look at him. “You don’t,” Javert echoes. A pause, and then, “Not ever?” 

Silence stretches out between them. Then Javert rolls onto his back, drags his hands across his face, and emits a deep groan. His shoulders begin to shake; it takes Valjean a moment to realize—he is laughing. 

“Naturally.” Javert's voice is muffled by his hands. “I am taken hostage and the man turns out to be the one convict at Toulon _keeping himself pure_.”

“That’s not—” Valjean begins, but words fail him. The scathing mockery in Javert's voice unsettles him. He is not sure which of them it is directed at. Perhaps both of them. Anger flashes in him briefly. “You don't know at all what you're talking about.”

Javert’s laughter dies off. "No," he says. "Never mind." His face is still covered by his hands.

Valjean studies him, bewildered and weary. "Javert—"

“I said never mind,” Javert snaps, all signs of mirth vanishing. He starts to move away.

"Wait." Valjean catches his arm.

“Don’t worry,” says Javert flatly. “I’m not about to try running again.”

Valjean shakes his head, wetting his chapped lips uncertainly. Javert’s face is turned away, his shoulders hunched, but he makes no move to pull his arm out from Valjean’s grasp, and Valjean does not let go. Rather than fear, he senses from Javert embarrassment. Tension.

It is strange to be wanted. Exhilarating and—strange. This has never happened before; he does not know what to do, what is expected.

"Javert," he says again, and stops. He does not know what he wants, let alone how to say it. Javert's face is almost perfectly blank, but Valjean sees the question behind his guarded glance. Slowly, haltingly, Valjean presses on: “I keep to myself. No one’s ever sought me out. The others—they all leave me alone.”

“You are rather intimidating," Javert concedes. His expression, though still hesitant, turns speculative, his gaze sweeping slowly over Valjean's form.

Valjean ducks his head. There is a flicker of something, some new, nervous hunger, burning low in his belly. “I've never given it much thought." He is staring at his hand on Javert’s arm and the words are tumbling out clumsily, one after the other. "There’s so much I go without, and this particular thing, it, it never—it never seemed important. But if you—” He tightens his grip on Javert’s arm. “I think, perhaps, if this... If you—”

Javert kisses him.

It is hesitant and clumsy, but Javert’s mouth is soft. Valjean returns the kiss with a kind of determination. When he opens his eyes for a moment, it strikes him that he has never before beheld another person’s face this close to his own. The strangeness renders everything unreal, like a dream; it is intoxicating. He grips the back of Javert’s neck, needing more. Javert yields, his eyes rolling back, falling shut.

Let consequences be damned. An open door stands before Valjean: who has he ever been to refuse?

He kisses Javert hungrily, even as Javert murmurs against his mouth, “Let me see you,” breathless, tugging at Valjean’s shirt. They are stretched out on the ground, side by side, and Javert has hitched Valjean’s shirt up under his shoulders. Javert is nipping gently at Valjean’s neck, sucking the lobe of his ear; his hands are tracing the small of Valjean’s back, the ridges of his hips, slipping into his trousers, and now he is dropping light kisses onto Valjean’s shoulder, his chest, his stomach, and it is not a dream, it is real.

All of a sudden, it is too much. Valjean’s chest constricts. He has never known touches like this; to learn them now, after so many years without a gentle touch of any kind at all, is a kind of agony. A low moan escapes him, breaking off in a despairing whimper. He squeezes his eyes shut at the sound, pressing the heels of his hands against his head.

Javert goes still. Valjean takes a deep, shuddering breath and does not move. His chest feels tight. After a moment, Javert’s hands leave him. He hears Javert ask tentatively, “Valjean?” Glancing up at him, Valjean thinks that he looks nothing like Javert, nothing like a prison guard at all, his hair and clothes in disarray, his brow furrowed with confusion. Valjean shuts his eyes again.

“I can’t tell if—” Javert begins, and he doesn’t sound like Javert either. “Are you… all right, or…?”

Valjean laughs, painfully. “Yes,” he says. “I am fine. I am"—his words fall to a whisper so soft he doubts Javert can hear—“overwhelmed.”

There is a pause. Valjean wonders through a haze what Javert’s face looks like right now. Javert clears his throat and says in a voice that is almost his old authoritative prison voice, but for the slight note of uncertainty, “Are you going to be able to continue? We can stop.”

“No,” says Valjean. He swallows thickly. “I just need a moment. Unless you wish to stop?”

Javert’s eyebrows rise. He murmurs, “This is not what I thought it would be.”

Taking that for his answer, Valjean nods, and sits up, trying to muster some dignity. “All right.”

“No, that’s not—” Cursing under his breath, Javert leans forward and presses his forehead to Valjean’s shoulder, hiding his face there. “It is strange," says Javert. "That’s all.”

Valjean rests a hand on Javert’s head, splaying his fingers in soft, dark hair. “All right,” he says again. It is strange; well, let it be. He pulls his shirt off over his head and presses Javert back against the ground, moving with him, over him. Javert cranes his neck upward and Valjean meets him in another kiss.

Distantly, he wonders which of them is making this happen, which can be said to be responsible for this. Javert is his hostage and as such is under Valjean’s power, but does not Javert still hold power over him? Is not this little world away from Toulon only a brief and doomed world? Valjean cannot make sense of it, so he gives up trying—easier instead to focus on the pleasing line of Javert's jaw, the unprecedented pleasure of his tongue slipping into Valjean's mouth, the way he trails his fingers down Valjean’s chest, wrists still chained, with a look akin to reverence on his face.

Moved by some sudden inspiration or impulse, Valjean captures Javert’s hands in his own before they can slide any lower again, and brings them up over his head, pressing them firmly against the ground. “Stay," he says, his voice sounding deeper to his ears than usual. Javert’s eyes gleam in response and a curious pride burgeons inside Valjean's chest. He drags his hands down along Javert’s arms, over his torso, and Javert arches into the caress like a particularly pleased cat.

Reaching the hem of the shirt, Valjean pushes the fabric up just enough to expose Javert’s navel and the dark trail of hair leading down from it. He presses a tentative kiss there. The tender skin jumps at the contact and Valjean’s grip on the shirt tightens; he draws it up the rest of the way, up over Javert’s head and arms, until it is caught against the chain between his wrists.

Valjean sits back on his heels and takes in the sight before him, the long and lightly muscled body, the dark flush that spreads over Javert's face and down across his chest. He bucks slightly when Valjean runs a thumb over a sharp hipbone, and when Valjean grips both hips to hold him down firmly, he makes a strangled, desperate noise and rolls his head to the side, biting his lip. Valjean hastily shucks Javert’s trousers down to his thighs and palms his cock lightly. All of Javert’s breath leaves him in a low, rumbling groan. 

Shaking his head in wonder, Valjean leans back a little to unfasten his own trousers to take himself in hand, but Javert reaches for him. “Let me,” he says, and if he is disobeying Valjean’s instruction, it hardly matters. Javert runs his hands over Valjean's waist and hips, palms open, fingers spread wide. The chain between his wrists bumps against Valjean's skin, the metal cold and shocking.

“Wait,” Valjean says breathlessly, catching Javert’s hands, for suddenly he cannot stand the thought of the shackles. “What did you do with the key?"

It takes Javert a moment to understand. He glances down at his trousers bunched around his knees, and Valjean, following his gaze, finds the key in one of his pockets. With unsteady fingers, he frees Javert’s wrists, tossing the shackles aside.

Javert resumes his previous task at once: Valjean gasps, unprepared for the shock of Javert's fist curling firmly around his cock, sliding along its length. It does not take long. Soon Valjean is shuddering and spilling over Javert, teeth sinking into Javert's shoulder, fingers threaded in Javert's thick hair, and then Javert is joining him, hands scrabbling over Valjean’s back convulsively, face pressed against Valjean’s arm.

When it is over, Valjean looks down at Javert in a daze. Javert blinks back at him sleepily. His eyes close. Valjean lies down beside him, leaving an arm draped over his torso, heedless of the mess. The sky has turned a pale blue and the first few lonely birds have begun calling out to each other. Valjean rests his eyes. Perhaps he sleeps.


	4. Chapter 4

Valjean sits stiffly in the wan morning light, blinking down at the mess that has dried on his stomach. He picks at it, idly and without much success. His throat feels dry. He finds the canteen, takes a long swig, staring up at the brightened sky. The sunlight makes him feel exposed. 

He lowers the canteen and drags his sleeve over his mouth, craning his neck to scan the surrounding woods. “We should move," he says.

A quick glance down to his side finds Javert curled up on the ground, head resting on one arm, mouth slightly open, apparently fast asleep. He looks strangely innocent like this, and very young. Pushing this thought aside, he shakes the boy's shoulder. Javert's eyes fly open. Immediately, his expression clouds; he sits up without looking at Valjean, and begins fixing his trousers.

A glint of metal catches Valjean's eye—the shackles. He remembers flinging them aside earlier. Now he stares at them where they lay strewn in the dirt, hesitating; after a moment, he stands and plucks them up off the ground, slipping them into the knapsack.

The boy has not has not moved. Valjean gestures impatiently. “Let’s go.”

Javert's gaze darts from his unbound wrists and ankles to the knapsack in Valjean's hands. He looks perplexed, annoyed even. “You understand—this was not—” he waves a hand vaguely, huffs, and lets his hand fall. Squints. “There is no deal between us.”

“I didn't think there was,” says Valjean.

“Then why—”

“You won’t get far if you try running with the state your feet are in. And I think you know better than to try fighting me.” Javert arches an eyebrow and folds his arms over his still-bare chest. Valjean turns away, adding, in a quiet, gruffer tone, “I don't want those damn chains around if I don't need them. Now, get up, before I make you.”

He can feel Javert staring at him for a long moment after that. Just when he begins to think maybe he will have to actually force Javert to his feet, he hears the rustle of clothing. When he turns around again, Javert is standing fully dressed, looking at him expectantly.

Valjean nods. “You go in front,” he says, pointing ahead of him. Rolling his eyes a little, Javert walks past him.

\- - 

The sun is high overhead now, the evening air mild in the shade by the edge of the stream. Javert and Valjean sit side by side, taking a moment's respite after the day's hike. Javert has unraveled the cloth wrappings from his feet and is easing them into the water, grimacing slightly. They have spoken little since the day's start, and eaten less: only small wild fruits when they can find them.

Valjean produces the last remaining hunk of bread from Javert's bag. It will be only a few mouthfuls for each of them, if they split it. After scowling at it for several seconds, he breaks it, more or less evenly, in half. Javert accepts his share wordlessly, without looking up from the water.

There are mountain trout swimming at the bottom of the shallow stream. Valjean watches them hungrily, chewing mechanically until his bit of bread is gone. He glances at Javert, pressing his lips together thoughtfully. Abruptly, he says, “I’m going to try something. Get out of the water.”

Shooting Valjean a questioning and somewhat skeptical glance, Javert obeys, pulling his legs up onto the grass. 

Valjean stretches out flat on his stomach so that his head and shoulders are overlooking the stream. With painful care, he slips his hand slowly into the frigid water. At first, as he expects, the fish move away, but he is patient, and after several minutes have passed, when his arm must feel as cold to the touch as the rocks at the bottom of the stream, they seem to forget him, and venture near again. Valjean holds very still, and waits, until at last, one brushes against his hand. He closes his fingers around the sleek, slippery tail, and letting out a short, triumphant shout, pulls his arm from the stream and tosses the unfortunate creature up onto the bank.

Javert looks with astonishment from Valjean to the fish flopping futilely in the grass. “Impressive,” he says quietly, without any trace of irony in his voice.

Valjean dries his freezing hand against his shirt. His joy at the prospect of a decent meal is such that he cannot keep a wide grin from stretching across his face. He shrugs, still grinning. “A bear can do it.”

Javert snorts. "Yes, I suppose you are like enough to a bear.” Valjean glances up, sees the little upward curve at one side of Javert’s mouth, the glimmer of amusement in his eyes.

“Well,” says Valjean. “Let’s get a fire started, shall we?”

\- - 

Perhaps, perhaps this time, he has really climbed out from hell for good. Warm food in his belly, an open, clear sky overhead—he can go on like this indefinitely, so long as some stranger does not cross his path. And even then, perhaps this far from the prison, no one will know him for a convict.

The flames of the fire he and Javert built flicker in front of him hypnotically. A log slips, sending a burst of sparks up into the air. Valjean breathes in the smoky, comforting scent, and sighs. Javert is close by, stretched out on his back, his coat balled up behind his head as a pillow. Valjean thinks at first that he has fallen asleep, but the boy's eyes are open, gazing up at the night sky with an expression Valjean cannot quite decipher. He seems lost, almost, and removed, miles from the campfire and from Valjean. And yet, that very morning, his hands had trailed down Valjean’s back, his lips had pressed warm, hungry kisses to Valjean’s skin.

There is no deal; Javert is still a loyal prison guard, Valjean a convicted wretch. But it isn't true that it means nothing. It means _something;_ it must. He just doesn't know what.

Haltingly, Valjean eases himself down to lie on the ground beside Javert, not quite touching. Javert tenses a little, but does not move otherwise. Valjean chews the inside of his cheek uncertainly and brings a hand to touch Javert’s hip. Javert gives no reaction at all. With a flare of unexpected dismay and shame—perhaps Javert no longer wants this—Valjean withdraws his hand, but then Javert catches his wrist, and tugs him closer, and Valjean banishes shame from his mind, banishes thought altogether.

\--

After, Valjean barely remembers to chain himself to Javert again, before they fall asleep. He moves slowly, awkwardly; the iron is cold and heavy against his skin. He lies back against the ground, and tries to forget it. Clouds have drifted in overhead, covering the stars, the moon. He rolls onto one side, then the other, then onto his back again. He is not sure how much time passes like that. 

He cannot sleep, so he says to the darkness, "Are you awake?"

"No," comes the response.

Valjean smiles a little. For some reason, and for the first time in years, he thinks of his boyhood, of long winter days when the cold was so bitter that he and his brother and sister could do nothing but stay huddled together under the bedcovers. After their parents died, it had just been the three of them: Jeanne, Jean, and Jacques. Until one winter Jacques left them too.

“Did you ever have any brothers or sisters, Javert?”

“No," says Javert again, his voice listless and thick with sleep. “At least, none to my knowledge. Who knows what my father got up to?” 

Valjean thinks about this, but does not know what to say, so he says nothing. 

"But you have," Javert adds a moment later. "A sister, you said. All those nieces and nephews."

"Yes." Valjean swallows. He wants to say something about her, about the way his sister always took care of him when they were young, how later she wore herself—and Valjean, and her husband, before he died—down to the bone for her children, and how it was still never enough. He wants to say something about his brother, and how he barely got to exist, how Valjean forgets he ever did for years at a time.

None of the words he can think to say seem right.

"If you don't want to talk about it, why did you mention it?"

Valjean sighs. "I don't know," he says, truthfully; in prison, the guards and his fellows were as ghosts to him, their pasts, and his own, all better left forgotten. He's not sure why it should be any different out here. He rolls onto his side. "Go back to sleep."

Behind him, Javert rolls over as well. The back of his hand brushes up against Valjean's shoulder, lightly, perhaps by accident. Valjean lets it be, and is soon asleep.

\- -

“What if you were to really manage it?” Javert asks the next day. “If no one found you? Where would you go?"

They are on the move once more, Valjean just behind Javert, so as to keep him in sight. They have not spoken in hours, except to point out a patch of berries here or a way around a small ravine there. 

"I know you never really formed a _plan_ ," Javert adds, "but there must be someplace you’re trying to get to, or a goal of some kind.”

A raindrop glances Valjean's forehead. He wipes it away, squinting up at the sky—thick, dark clouds have rolled in—and nearly knocks over Javert, who has apparently stopped to observe him. They catch each other's arms for balance. "Sorry," Javert mutters. He lets go and resumes walking. After a moment, he asks, "Have you truly not thought about it at all?"

Valjean sighs. Of course he has thought about it—but vaguely, cautiously. His mind shies away from the topic, like a traveler avoids a treacherous road. There are too many questions and too many horrible answers. What would he do _were he free?_ But he is not free, not truly, not yet.

But Javert still wants an answer and for some reason, Valjean finds himself answering: “I will look for my family."

Javert nods, appearing to think about this for a moment. "You don't know where they are, then? Those seven nieces and nephews?”

More raindrops fall, onto Valjean's arms, his hands. “I don’t even know if any of them are alive. A man told me a year ago that—well, nevermind." One foot in front of the other. He will find what he will find.

Again, Javert nods and is quiet. After a moment, he says, “Some of them, at least, will have made their own way, I expect. Children can be resilient."

Valjean grunts and cannot stop himself from returning skeptically, "The eldest was barely eight when I was arrested.” Michelle. He can see her now in his mind as she was, hiding stolen milk behind her back, looking up at him with big, worried eyes. He tries not to wonder what’s become of her.

The rain picks up abruptly, the clouds overhead opening like burst dam. The sound of it fills the air around them.

"It may even be better this way," says Javert, loudly to top the downpour. "Maybe they will have learned some respect for the law.”

At that phrase, Valjean goes cold. He watches Javert push his way through the brush. There is a sureness to the boy's movements, an unhesitating efficiency that makes Valjean picture him on duty, wielding a guardsman's truncheon. He does not remember seeing Javert specifically at Toulon, but the image comes easily. He wonders when it was that Javert decided on that path. He wonders what his father, the convict, thought of it, if he ever knew.

"Respect for the law," he echoes. “Like you?”

Javert throws him a cool look. “Perhaps you would prefer it if they’d been drowned at birth?”

It takes a moment for Valjean to recall why the phrase sounds familiar—his remark to Javert the other day. He runs a hand over his head in agitation. “No, Javert. I would not. I would be _glad_ to know they were alive and well. And if any of them took your road, well—so be it. I would be..." He thinks of Michelle again. "I would be proud, even.”

Javert looks back sharply; his eyes meet Valjean's for the barest of seconds before darting away. Valjean frowns. "But no prouder than I’d be to learn they’d turned to crime and made a life of it, and managed to keep out of prison.”

Then Javert laughs, and there is relief as well as bitterness in the sound.“That is because you are a degenerate,” he says, “with no appreciation for the difference between right and wrong, and no respect for the authorities that make the difference plain for you.”

“The authorities,” Valjean spits. “The only difference between any of the men at Toulon is this: some wear red and some blue. And those in blue get to say when and where the ones in red will be beaten."

Javert shakes his head sharply and quickens his pace. "There is a great deal more separating us than that, Valjean. I know my place. And I have worked hard to follow a right path, but you, on the other hand, Jean Valjean—you are where you are because you broke the law.”

“I made a mistake." Valjean strides forward, grabbing and turning Javert around to face him. “I made a mistake, but I have paid for it. By God, I have paid. Every day—" he breaks off. If he were to begin listing all the ways he has paid, he might never stop. He takes a breath, and starts again. "I have more than paid for my crime. And for what? What good does my suffering do the man I robbed?”

“The man you robbed is not the point,” Javert says tersely. “It is society you have wronged.” A low, incredulous laugh escapes Valjean. Javert ignores it. “Do you remember nothing of the events of ten years ago?”

All around them, the trees are swaying and groaning. Valjean shakes his head. Of course he remembers. Who in France could have forgotten? But, “What does that have to do with me?”

“It has to do with all of us. With—” Javert waves a hand expansively. “With human society. The Law is all that holds the world together. You put yourself before that. If every man did as you did, do you know where we’d be? We'd be in the dark—in chaos—left to the mercy of the whims of whoever might seize power for himself.”

The wind ripples through Valjean’s thin clothes; he shivers, Javert's words resonating in his mind. _In the dark. At the mercy of those with power._ But Javert's vision of a world without justice—it is no imaginary nightmare; it is the simple, inescapable truth of Valjean's reality.

“I am already there.” His voice is hoarse. Javert shakes his head. Valjean repeats, louder, “Javert, I am already there. My life is not my own. It—”

“You had fair warning.” 

“—never was.” 

“You sentence was not given on some whim!” They stare at each other for a moment, the flare of renewed animosity rising rapidly. "Theft is a _crime_ ," says Javert through clenched teeth. "There are consequences for it, and you, Valjean, chose to ignore that! If you were to thrust you hand into a fire, of your own will, would you complain when it burned you?”

Valjean considers this, and recalls the desperation the gripped him on that winter night so many years ago, seeing the sickly pallor on the youngest one's small face, his sister pacing with him in her arms, all the others standing around the empty table like little misplaced scarecrows.

“If the fire is at my door,” says Valjean, voice low, laced with conviction, “and the house all filled with smoke, then there is no choice but to go through. And yes, I may complain of my burns when there is no one who comes to help!”

Javert shakes his head stubbornly and looks away.

“What should I have done, Javert? Stood by and watched them die? Those little children?" Javert opens his mouth to interject but Valjean rushes on before he can say a word. "I know what I did helped nothing, but only made things worse, I _know_. I should have left the baker's window that night—he might even have given me a loan, if I'd gone to him in the morning! I know! But what then? What of the next day? The next year? I looked every day for work! I could have gone on looking and waiting, if it were only me, but the rest of them—!”

For a long time, Javert says nothing. Then, without looking at Valjean, he says, “Each of us carries burdens. And each must find his way. Or fail.” 

"Some of us carry more than others," Valjean counters heatedly.

"Even so," says Javert. A flash of lightning illuminates his face as finally he looks back at Valjean. Rain is running down it in rivulets, catching in the dark, patchy beginnings of beard that have grown in these last few days. There is no fear now in his eyes as he looks at Valjean, nor even anger, but only regret, and resignation.

"You cannot really think that," says Valjean.

Javert says nothing.

Valjean wants to grab him, shake him, throw him down, or—something. Something. He settles for clutching his shoulders, balling his fists in the cold, damp wool of his coat. _Why?_ he wants to shout. Why should that be the way of things? Why should they accept it, and what kind of god would allow it? 

A roll of thunder follows close behind the lightning. Valjean lets go of Javert and glances up at the darkened sky. There is no sign of it letting up any time soon. 

“Enough,” he says, stepping away. “Let's find someplace dry.”


	5. Chapter 5

Their argument has left Valjean reeling, distracted. He walks blindly through the trees and sheets of rain, one hand on Javert's shoulder, hardly aware of any of it. His mind is a churning tumult of despair and consternation, thoughts of poverty, of prison, and the god that has condemned him to both. The victors of the world that hold him and all the defeated, crushed, under their feet.

After a while, he realizes that Javert has stopped, and is pointing to something.

"Well?" Javert is saying to him. "What do you think? Shall we go take a look?"

It is a small, rather ramshackle shed. The sight of it, the thought of what it might mean, sends a ripple of fear through Valjean. Who built this structure? Where are they?

After receiving no response from Valjean, Javert gives a shrug and marches up to the door; he knocks. Waits. Valjean stares after him in terrified paralysis. If someone is within, if they are armed, if Javert gives him away—! Javert knocks again. After a moment, he lifts the latch, pulls it open, and disappears inside, leaving Valjean outside, alone.

He could run; he could sprint for the trees—he might disappear in this rain!

The door opens again and Javert looks out. He frowns when he sees Valjean still standing in the rain. “What are you doing?"

Valjean only wraps his arms around himself, shivering. His fingers find the strap of Javert's knapsack, still slung over his shoulder. There is a knife in the knapsack, he remembers.

Comprehension registers on Javert's face, and with it, discomfort, and something like pity. “There's no one here," he says. "It’s likely abandoned.”

Valjean hesitates. Javert doesn’t lie—is that not what he said, that first night by the river? And he has not. Not yet.

Thunder cracks, like a volley of gunfire, like the world splitting in two. Javert is watching him expectantly, waiting. Valjean grips the knapsack tighter. Ignoring the sense of dread that fills him, he steps into the shed, and shuts the door.

\- -

Inside, it is musty, windowless and dim, the only light being the small lantern Javert finds; it is a cramped, single-room storehouse with a dirt floor, lined with shelves holding a few scattered jars of preserves. There is no one in sight. Valjean shakes off what he can of the rain, like a dog, and runs a hand over his head. His fear begins to recede somewhat; still, he is not entirely at ease. Nervously, he fiddles with the jars on the shelves. 

"We should leave everything as we find it," Javert warns.

“I thought you said this place was abandoned," says Valjean. Nonetheless, he sets the jar back down in its place.

If not abandoned, it is at least unoccupied at the moment, and the owners, whoever they are, are not likely to return in the middle of a storm. He and Javert will not stay long.

He leans back against the edge of a shelf and let himself sink to the floor. A moment later, Javert joins him, setting the lantern down between them; its weak, flickering light casts strange and calming shadows on the walls. 

"How long do you plan to drag me along with you?" Javert asks quietly, breaking the silence, "While you track down your family?”

Valjean studies his hands. It is the question he has been avoiding. He thinks, _How long would you stay with me?_ and buries the thought. Javert is a hostage. A prisoner. The question should be this: when can Valjean afford to let him go? When will it be safe?

The ends of his fingernails have become completely black with dirt. He picks at them, frowning. Javert sighs loudly; Valjean thinks he hears him mutter, “This is absurd.” 

“If I let you go,” Valjean begins slowly, “will you tell the authorities how to find me? Will you help them track me down?”

“To the extent that I am able,” says Javert. “But you don’t even know where you’re headed.”

Valjean nods. He does not look up from his hands. “And you will tell them everything? You will report—all of it?”

“All of—?”

“You will tell them I attacked and threatened you and then took you hostage.”

“Yes. I must.”

“Then, you will sign my death warrant.”

“Valjean—” There is a plaintive note in Javert’s voice that surprises Valjean. Perhaps it surprises Javert as well, for he breaks off and says nothing for several seconds, before adding in a steadier voice, “What else can you possibly expect from me?”

“Do you think I deserve to die?" Valjean’s hands clench around each other. He feels suddenly like coiled wire pulled taut, ready to snap. "That I am so dangerous I should be put down like a rabid animal?”

“You seem to be forgetting that you almost drowned me," Javert mutters.

“You turned your gun on me." Valjean's voice is quiet, but he is very close to shouting. "You tried to shoot me."

The walls of the shed rattle with a particularly strong gust of wind. Javert looks uncomfortable. “Yes. I—”

“Would you shoot me now?”

He pauses; Javert gives no response except a quick, irritated glare. 

“Because it will amount to the same thing, Javert, if you press charges against me.”

Javert shakes his head sharply and stares at the ground, completely still, aside from a subtle clenching and unclenching of his jaw. Eventually, he says, “It has nothing to do with me or you. A convict attacking a guard—" he looks up at Valjean. His eyes are unblinking, cold and hard as stone. "That cannot happen. And I cannot lie about it." 

“I see,” says Valjean, quietly.

Javert frowns, his brow knitting. "You are surprised to hear that."

Valjean looks away from those eyes, rubbing a hand across his face. Is he? He doesn't know.

"I'm sorry," says Javert.

At that, Valjean blinks, and does not move, waiting for the explanation that such a singular pronouncement demands. When it does not come for several seconds, he repeats hoarsely, "You're sorry?"

"Yes," says Javert. "For the way I've behaved. I—confused things. I thought—that it would be simple, and that you..." He trails off. Valjean, strangely numb, listens and waits, eyes fixed on the wall beside him. Javert seems to steal himself before concluding, "It was never my intention to deceive you."

"You didn't," says Valjean, not to reassure Javert, but because it’s true. Javert warned him from the beginning not to believe that bribes or pity or anything else in the world could change his mind. Valjean heard, and, until this moment, thought he understood.

His fists clench. How can it be that after all these years he _still_ has not learned this simple lesson, the only lesson it seems life has for him: do not put hope in impossible things—do not hope at all. Friendship, compassion, miracles: these things are not for him.

When he finally looks at Javert, the other man's expression has turned wary, almost frightened. Valjean uncurls his fists, bitter amusement bringing a brief and wolfish grin to his face. 

"For what it's worth," says Javert, "I will tell them that I don't think you are, in general, dangerous. But it most likely won't make a difference."

 _That is why you should lie_ , Valjean thinks, but it would be useless to say this. Javert will uphold his duty to the state. Valjean pulls his cap down over his eyes, welcoming darkness. Outside, the rain beats down steadily, accompanied by wind’s howling. A gloomy sort of song, he thinks. A prison song.

\- -

He doesn't know how long he’s been staring at the thin sunbeam on the wall, lost in a thoughtless, somber meditation, when the significance of what he’s seeing strikes him: sunlight, shining in through a small crack in one of the walls. And as he listens, he realizes the wind has ceased to howl, and the rain on the roof of the shed is only a slow, quiet pattering. The storm has passed.

“Javert,” he says, but when he looks over, he finds, to his amazement, that Javert has fallen asleep. The sight makes Valjean smile, faintly, despite everything; he has only ever known a cat to sleep with such frequency and ease. Then, as if it had never been, the smile slides from his face. He is a fool. A fool and a madman—just as Javert said, that first night by the river. And what is Javert? Another madman. A madman who's made himself, by choice, both a slave and a slave-driver, and yet sleeps easily.

Valjean takes a jar of strawberry preserves down from the shelf—what does another crime matter, now he knows he's damned?—slipping it into the knapsack. It is good that Javert is asleep, he thinks. It will be very easy this way. He slings the knapsack over one shoulder and, without sparing Javert another glance, opens the door and steps outside, where the air still smells of rain. 


	6. Chapter 6

Valjean trudges onward through the muddied woods, one foot in front of the other, trying to think of nothing at all. His clothes are wet, his mouth is dry, and something in him is aching in the strangest way; he might be feverish. Slowing his steps for a moment, he wipes his brow—and freezes. Someone is approaching.

He rushes to conceal himself, his heart hammering wildly in his chest. Could Javert have set someone on his trail so quickly? 

The sounds grow closer, until, there! He spies the source: it is not police, nor bounty hunters or even Javert himself, but a little girl, dressed in simple peasant clothes. She is carrying a basket, swinging it carelessly as she walks and humming some song. The melody is vaguely familiar, and Valjean almost begins to relax, almost begins to wonder what she is doing out here on her own, when he sees that she is not.

A boy, a head taller than her—he might be eleven or twelve—trails behind, thwacking branches and bushes with a rifle as if it were some stick he'd picked up from the ground. Like his sister—they must be siblings, Valjean thinks, taking in their tanned and freckled freckles, their matching nests of stringy, reddish hair—his clothing is simple and worn-looking, mended and patched here and there.

Then comes a third figure: a man, tall and lanky, his beard and hair the same coppery color as the children's. The father, perhaps, or some other relation. He too carries a rifle.

The three of them pass by Valjean in his hiding spot, heading in the direction he has just come from, for the storehouse. Can they be its owners? Is that their destination? But if they go inside—they may find Javert there, still asleep.

Javert will tell them everything. He will explain who he is and how he came to be here, and they will listen to him. He is a man of the law, a servant of the government; they will listen when he tells them who they ought to be on the lookout for: the escaped convict, who broke into their store and robbed them, and whose capture could earn them a hundred francs. The word will spread; a hunt will start. Valjean must get away, must put as much distance between himself and this place as he possibly can. 

As soon as the strangers have passed out of earshot, he drops the incriminating knapsack in the dirt and starts to run, his gait loping and panicked, feeling his shackle-leg like a dead weight. A familiar mantra starts up in his head: he won’t go back, he won’t go back, he won’t. Not to Toulon. He keeps on running and does not stop until he hears the crack of a gunshot in the distance.

He reaches out his hands and stops himself against a tree, where he spends a moment gasping for breath, pressing his head to the rough bark. A gunshot. What does it mean?

The sound of it reverberates through his skull. Those people he saw, with their rifles—by now they will have reached the shed and—and what? What will they have they found? Is Javert there still? Have they—?

No. No, it cannot mean that.

Perhaps the shot was fired as a warning, like the cannons of Toulon— _a criminal is at large, beware!_ Perhaps it is meant to frighten Valjean away.

They have no reason to harm Javert—he did nothing to them, and had he been free to choose, he would never have come this way at all. He would have stopped Valjean from robbing them, too. But then, thinks Valjean, pulling off his cap to grasp at short, uneven tufts of hair, when have such things ever mattered? That Javert would sooner die than break the law guarantees him nothing. With his uniform ragged and ruined, no truncheon or whistle or shoes, he might be anyone.

Why didn’t he let the boy go his own way days ago?

_Why not just kill me?_

He thinks back to that first night by the river, to his hands around Javert's throat, to Javert's words: _Be done with it now_. The shame and anger Valjean felt then. And now, after that, after everything, for Javert to die now because of Valjean—

He might just as well have done as Javert suggested and skipped all the rest. Then he would would not have this thick, painful knot in his chest; nor these new, incongruous memories, and with them, the nascent fear that he will never be able to entirely forget or understand them: Javert's face touching Valjean's, dark eyes wide with wonder, Javert's hands on Valjean's shoulders, tentative, eager, and all of it impossibly, nonsensically, tender.

Valjean rakes his hand over his head roughly. For Javert, the distinction is meaningless: dead at Valjean's hands four days ago, or dead today at the hands of these peasants. If he is dead, he is dead.

But if he is alive... Before even realizing he's made a decision, Valjean has turned around and started running again, back over the ground he's covered, back to the shed. He has no idea what he means to do; he only knows he must return; he must know what's happened.

\- -

Outside the shed, the man with the copper hair is pacing, pulling at his bright, wiry beard, gangly and expressionless; his rifle hangs loosely from one hand, the end of it skimming the dirt. The door to the shed is shut, the latch down. There is no sign of the two children anywhere, and no sign of Javert. 

Valjean observes all this from a distance, crouched behind a tree, catching his breath and waiting for the pounding in his ears to subside. How should he proceed? He thinks about walking up to the stranger and inquiring: _do you know if there is a man inside that shed?_ The thought almost causes him to laugh with a burst of hysteria; instead, he smiles briefly, a dark, panicked flash of teeth.

Perhaps he should leave. Javert is not here. Likely enough, the man simply discovered that he'd been robbed and fired a shot at the sky in frustration, or in warning.

Just then, Valjean sees another man approaching, similar in appearance, though his hair is lighter, a faded yellow mixed with gray. Brothers, Valjean decides. Over his shoulder, this second man carries another rifle, along with a pair of shovels. "Gaspard!" he calls.

The younger man jumps, startled, and turns quickly to face him. "Anton," he says, his posture relaxing. "Anton, good, you're here."

The newcomer, Anton, nods and sets the shovels down. "Came as soon as I could." He turns to face the shed. "So he's in there, I take it?" 

"Yes," says the younger brother, Gaspard. He resumes his pacing. "I swear, I'll skin Jacques alive! Should be able to handle himself with a gun at his age!"

"He still alive?"

Gaspard stops pacing. "I don't know. Likely not."

Valjean has heard enough. He stands up shakily and takes a step backward. He thinks again about leaving. If Javert is already dead, then it is too late. There is nothing Valjean can do.

What does it mean, he wonders distantly, that _this_ should be Javert's end? Javert the prison guard, Javert the convict's son—murdered by a peasant boy for a few jars of jam which he refused to even touch. The proud, _stupid_ man.

"Well. Guess we'd better get started."

"Where should we do it?"

It isn't right. It's wrong, and everything is all wrong, always, but that's wrong too; that everything should be hideous and meaningless, that Valjean can have killed Javert through sheer accident after sparing his life, that these men will toss his body in a ditch and walk away—

It cannot be true. Valjean will not allow it. As if in a dream, he feels himself moving forward, slowly, leaving his hiding place, one foot in front of the other, into the open.

Someone is shouting. "Hey! You, there! Stop right there!" Valjean stops. He looks up and sees the brothers. The younger one has his gun raised high, taking aim, while the other stands at his side with a cautious, shrewd expression. 

"Please," Valjean says hoarsely, because he does not know what else to do but beg. He holds out his hands, spreading his fingers. "Please, I'm unarmed."

Anton says something Valjean cannot hear and then Gaspard lowers his gun a little. 

“Well?" the younger man shouts. "What's your business? Come closer!"

What else can Valjean do?

Up close, the man called Gaspard has pale and watery eyes, set deep in a haggard, reddish face. He studies Valjean from across the length of his rifle. “Well?" he says again. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"Why sneak up on us like that?" the other man interjects. "Were you spying?"

“Please, messieurs, I mean no harm,” Valjean says quickly, eyes lowered. He doffs his cap humbly and twists it in his hands, trying to look smaller. “I was traveling this way with—my friend—we were lost. Then we got separated in the storm, and I heard a gunshot and I—just now, I heard you say..." His eyes dart to the shed, then warily to the two men. He swallows. "Is he—? May I see him?"

The strangers regard him in silence for several seconds. The one says, "Why not?", his mouth twisting to the side in a grimace. They step aside, leaving a clear path between Valjean and the shed. “Go on and see him, then.”

\- - 

Javert turns his head and Valjean’s breath catches in his chest. Javert is alive, blinking up at him with uncomprehending dismay. His hands clench and hover over his left thigh, where his trousers are stained, a deep, dark red seeping into the blue.

Valjean is at his side in a few quick strides, sinking to his knees. Javert's forehead crinkles. “Valjean? Ah!” He hisses a sharp breath, gritting his teeth as Valjean inspects the the wound.

“You're all right,” says Valjean gruffly. “It's not bad. It'll heal.”

Javert nods. His face is pale. In truth, Valjean has very little idea how to judge the damage. There is a lot of blood. He places his hand over the wound and presses down to stem the flow. Javert hisses again, eyes squeezing shut, and claps a hand over Valjean's.

A shadow falls over them as the two men appear at the doorway.

“Your friend here scared my kids half to death,” says Gaspard. "Any idea what he was doing hiding in our storehouse?”

Valjean shakes his head, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. He is acutely aware of being cornered.

“I don't know, monsieur," he says, eyes down, "maybe he wanted shelter from the storm.” Javert's grip on his hand is tight, but everything else about him seems limp and heavy. Urgently, Valjean adds, “He needs a doctor.” 

“Shelter from the storm,” Anton repeats skeptically. “So we won't find anything missing if we take a look?”

Javert's eyes open again and roll upward to the man. It looks as if it it is taking him great effort to stay focused and awake. “Theft," he says, "is a matter for the police. As is assault.” 

That knot in Valjean's chest is there again, tight and sharp between his ribs, and he does not understand how any of this happened, how they came to this. "He needs a doctor," he says again. He gets his arms under Javert, positioning him carefully, preparing to lift him. “I'm taking him." Javert shakes his head, eyes closing again, and Valjean shakes him a little. “Hold onto me, Javert."

"No." Valjean looks up to see the strangers watching, wearing matching frowns. "No," Anton repeats. 

"We can't just let you go," says Gaspard. "You'll have gendarmes at my door by sundown to drag my son away.”

The thought of going to the police almost makes Valjean want to laugh again. He swallows, staring up at Gaspard desperately, searching. The man is worried about his boy; he wants to protect him. Valjean can understand that. “Believe me," he says, "I don't intend to go to the police.”

"No? Why's that?"

They're only another bunch of frightened, desperate wretches, thinks Valjean. They don’t want trouble; they want _a way out_. If Valjean gives them that, then perhaps they can all walk away from this. What other choice does he have? With a deep breath, mustering all the courage and faith he can find in himself, he tells them: "Because they would drag me away right along with your boy." 

The words fall heavily from him and fill the room with a thick, terrible silence. All eyes are fixed on Valjean; he can feel Javert's astonished gaze even as he keeps his own attention on Gaspard and Anton, watching as comprehension and curiosity start to win out over suspicion. "You can trust me," he says. "I won't say a word about you, and you don’t say a word about me either.”

“About _you?_ ” Gaspard repeats, as Anton nods to himself and says, "Of course." The two of them look him over with an interest that makes Valjean uncomfortable, lingering over the scars on his scalp, until, with the sinking thought that he has made a mistake, that he has not bought their trust with this confidence, but only their betrayal, Valjean drops his gaze to the floor.

Abruptly, Anton pulls Gaspard back roughly and whispers something in his ear. They confer quietly for several seconds before turning their attention back to Valjean.

"Well, that is quite a revelation," says Anton, leaning against the door frame, tapping his long rifle against the ground. “And it's given us an idea. Better than yours.” His thumb rubs back and forth over the end of the barrel.

Valjean grits his teeth, trying not to let his impatience show. "Yes?"

The man makes a thoughtful humming sound and glances back at his brother, who nods.

“We take care of your friend here," says Gaspard, "and then you and my brother and I make a trip. To the port. See a little of Toulon.”

Valjean shuts his eyes, reeling. The ground seems to be falling out from under him.

"Perhaps you shouldn't be so hard on young Jacques, after all, Gaspard," Anton adds, over his shoulder. "Thanks to him, we're looking at a hundred francs in our near future.” 

"Let's just get on with it. Get him out of here and I'll finish it."

Valjean looks up to find himself, once again, at the end of Gaspard's gun. "Up," the man orders. "Slowly."

Déjà vu. Wasn't this how it all started? Only this time, Valjean is outnumbered, cornered, and he doubts both guns will misfire.

Somewhere, a door slams shut, and the clang of chains echoes through halls of stone. This is the end: there is no escape from here. He will be returned to his cage, to his toil. And Javert—they said they'd _take care_ of him.

"Wait," he says. "What about him?"

"What _about_ him," says Anton dryly, at the same time as Gaspard barks, "I said get up!"

The other man shakes his head. "Let him stay and watch if he wants. No one will care what the likes of him says he saw."

Valjean looks down at Javert, eyes closed now but breathing still. A few short, unruly strands of hair have fallen into his face, dark against ashen skin, and he doesn’t look like a guard at all. He might be anyone.

“You'll turn me in for a hundred francs,” says Valjean, without taking his eyes from Javert, “but you won't try to save him for another hundred?”

Javert's face clouds; he looks up at Valjean slowly, horror and gratitude and a dozen other emotions Valjean cannot read flickering in his eyes. Valjean swallows and looks away, back to the threat. They have lowered their guns, but have not moved otherwise, their expressions hesitant, suspicious.

"He's a convict, same as me," says Valjean.

"Why didn't you say so before?" Anton asks.

Valjean shakes his head. "I'd hoped you would let him go."

The brothers begin to conference again in hushed, heated voices, and then they leave, slamming the door behind them and settling the heavy latch back into place.

In the sudden darkness of the shed, Javert's grip tightens around Valjean's hand. "Valjean," he whispers harshly. "Valjean, what are you doing?"

Valjean cannot answer. He can only sit and wait, listening to the sound of Javert's breathing growing shallower.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

There is no way of telling how soon the strangers will reappear. Valjean watches the thin strip of light at the bottom of the door for their shadow and waits.

There is no way of telling when, but it is certain they will return. It is certain that Toulon waits for him, and the rack, and another several years to his sentence, or else death. Knowing this, a strange sort of calm comes over him, a distancing, a pane of glass sliding in, between him and the world. He is becoming a ghost again.

It is inertia, more than conscious thought, that keeps his hands pressed down firmly against Javert’s leg, warm and slippery with blood. Javert’s breathing is faint and uneven; his voice labored, trembling.

“Why did you tell them that? Valjean? To save me? Why? If we—if they bring us both back… But perhaps it will not matter...”

At some point in the last several minutes—Valjean cannot say how many—Javert has laid one of his hands atop Valjean’s, as if to help keep pressure on the wound, though the touch is far too light to be any use. His hand stirs now, fingers stretching to cover each of Valjean’s, before sliding slowly to hover over Valjean’s wrist. Valjean ignores the contact, pushing his weight down, onto the wound, ignores the way Javert’s hand goes on moving, traveling up over his arm, to his shoulder, where it lingers a while before trailing back down to his elbow, then up again. The motion is hypnotic. Perhaps Javert is delirious.

Perhaps Valjean is, too. He hangs his head, his eyes closing. What are they doing here, he wonders senselessly. How did it happen? All of it is like some mad dream. Javert is speaking again but his voice reaches Valjean as if through water, the words distant and foggy.

“Valjean,” he is saying, only a whisper. “You must try it, at least.”

“Try it?” Valjean echoes hollowly.

“The door,” says Javert. “With your strength, you could surely—you must try it.”

He opens his eyes. The door: yes. Yes, he can try it. After all, what is there to lose now? 

He takes Javert’s wandering hand in his own and guides it back to Javert’s leg, pressing it. “Stay like that,” he says, and pushes himself heavily to his feet, turning to face that narrow strip of light. 

He takes a deep breath, and charges forward, slamming his shoulder into the wood. There is a loud, splintering crack, but the door stands. Barely pausing to assess the damage, Valjean gets back into position, rolls his shoulders a few times, and throws himself at it again. 

Still, it does not give way. But it will. In time.

How much time does he have? 

A third hit, and a fourth. The fifth time, something breaks, but it is not the door: all at once, like floodgates opening, something comes pouring out from Valjean; suddenly he is not a ghost at all, but raw flesh and bone and rage. With a snarl, he rams a fist into the door, viciously, over and over again, gaining momentum, building in frustration and desperation, until his knuckles and shoulders are throbbing with a dull, welcome pain.

Suddenly, there is light, and air: then he is falling and catching himself, not on splinters and planks of wood, but on damp ground; he did not break through. The door was opened.

He recovers from this shock quickly, rolling onto his back and scrambling to his feet to face his returned captors. 

“Hey, hey, easy!” one of them says, as if he is a beast to be harnessed and broken.

Past all thought, Valjean rushes for him, swinging and landing a solid blow to his gut. The man cries out and doubles over—it is the older of the brothers, Anton, his yellowy gray hair falling into his face as he wheezes. Valjean moves swiftly to wrestle his rifle away; Anton stumbles, falling back as Valjean tears the gun from his grip.

“Enough!” The second brother, Gaspard. Valjean turns to face him. Once again, his rifle is pointed at Valjean. 

“Easy,” Gaspard repeats. “Put it down.”

The beginnings of ugly smile tug at Valjean’s mouth. “Or what?” He nods at the rifle in Gaspard’s hands. “Do it,” he says breathlessly, somewhere between a taunt and a plea. “Do it and lose your 100 francs.”

Something moves behind him. Valjean tenses; hesitant to take his attention away from Gaspard, he turns his head toward the sound only slightly.

A sudden, sharp pain explodes in his head—his vision dims—and then, nothing.

\--

Branches are passing overhead, the world below is rumbling. His head aches. Valjean tries to sit up—and finds that he can’t. Ropes constrain him, scraping against the skin of his wrists when he moves. He is stretched out in the back of a wagon, his arms bound to one end, his legs to the other. Exposed. Helpless. He strains against the ropes.

“Monsieur bruiser’s awake,” someone says. A woman.

Valjean turns his head to see her. It is woman of middle age, with dark, bushy hair tied back in a way that reminds him vaguely of Jeanne. She is seated on the other side of the wagon, bent over something—he lifts his head to see more clearly: Javert. She is dressing Javert’s wound. 

She catches Valjean’s gaze and smiles, quickly, distractedly. “Gaspard says you appeared out of nowhere to rescue this fellow. That true?”

Valjean just stares.

The woman tilts Javert’s head back with one hand and lifts a jug of water. Javert sputters as she pours a little into his mouth. His eyes remain closed.

“Seems like a rather heroic thing to do,” she remarks, dabbing at Javert with a washcloth. She throws Valjean another smile, wryer than the last. “Or idiotic, maybe.”

Valjean lowers his head back to the floor of the wagon.

“You know, I think he is going to recover.” She is quiet for a moment. Valjean watches the sky pass overhead. “Hey, do you want some water?”

No. He does not want anything at all. He closes his eyes.

“Hey, I asked you a question. Do you want something to drink?” 

Still, he says nothing. He does not even nod. He hears a little thump as she puts down the jug of water, then a rustling of fabric as she moves closer. He offers no acknowledgement. Maybe she will strike him for it. 

“Can’t you talk?” she asks, sounding annoyed. Now she will hit him; Valjean braces himself. Then, apparently softening a little, she says, “Ah, maybe you can’t. I might have hit you harder than I thought, before.”

Another voice interjects then—Gaspard or Anton, Valjean cannot tell. ”Let it be, Marie. I don’t want you talking to him. He’s violent, you saw.”

“Oh, but it’s all right for me to sit back here next to him and do all the work of keeping this other one alive?” she retorts. “Why don’t we trade, if you’re so worried?”

The man says something in response, but Valjean is not listening. He is sinking deep into himself. These people, their words, their guns—all of it is nothing, insubstantial as smoke.

\--

The trip back seems shorter than the trip out. His captors give him bread and water and throw a blanket over him at night. They take especial care of Javert, changing his bandages frequently, feeding him broth with sausage and cabbage, along with bread, cheese, grapes, boiled eggs, and some herbal mixtures they claim to have medicinal qualities. Perhaps the woman is right; perhaps Javert will recover. He spends most of the time sleeping, but when he is awake, he is clear-eyed and alert; the color has returned to his face.

Sometimes Valjean catches Javert looking at him with an inscrutable expression; once, he hears him say, “Valjean,” quietly, but Valjean shakes his head and shoots a pointed, wary glance at their captors, and Javert falls silent. Valjean does not know what Javert would say, but he can guess that whatever it is, he does not need or want to hear it.

Anton, Gaspard, and Marie chat idly amongst themselves—Marie has given up engaging Valjean after her first failed attempt—about their crops, their children, their plans for after they’ve received their two hundred francs in reward money. Valjean tunes them out and watches the passing countryside. 

He has some notion that he should be trying to take in and savor every last sight and sense presented to him—the quiet of the country road, the way the autumn leaves drift through the air like the embers of a fire—but all of it feels empty, chimerical. And every hour they come closer to the harbor, to Toulon, until one morning he wakes with the smell of the sea in his nostrils. 

He heaves up bile over the side of the cart.

\--

Just outside the gates of the prison, they stop, and Anton goes ahead alone to speak with the warden. He comes back half an hour later with a group of armed guards in familiar blue uniforms. Valjean, still held by ropes to the rails of the cart, looks down as they approach, dread and fear rising in him freshly.

“Now, you said there are two of them, correct?” one of the guards is saying.

“Yes, yes, two, come and see, I’ve got them right here—”

“My god! It’s Javert!”

“Who?”

“Javert, he’s an adjutant, he—”

“Rosier?” Javert pushes himself to sit upright, apparently recognizing a friend among the guards. Valjean does not dare look at him now.

“Javert! We thought perhaps you’d died!”

“Nearly.” There is a smile in Javert’s voice, Valjean can hear it.

“Wait,” says Anton, or maybe Gaspard. “He is not—a convict?”

“He is not, monsieur, not at all, and I dare say you all have some explaining, carting a guard in like—my god, Javert! What’s happened to you? Eh, Duval, go and fetch a medic—and a stretcher!”

“Yes, sir.”

Marie’s voice breaks in to ask loudly, “What about this one here, eh? Tell me _he’s_ not a prisoner of yours.”

Everyone quiets down for a moment. Valjean keeps his eyes down as all attention turns to him.

“Indeed he is,” says the guard. “A repeat offender, this one. We’ve been missing you, _le cric_.”

Valjean clenches his teeth.

“Eh? I’m talking to you, prisoner.”

Valjean meets the guard’s eyes slowly. He knows this one, Rosier: generally fair but unpredictable, prone to _going easy_ on prisoners, _giving favors,_ only to come back down with a vengeance as soon as he decides prisoners are _taking too many liberties_ — or as soon as he’s in a bad mood for any reason at all.

“Yes, sir,” says Valjean.

Rosier continues to stare him down, his mouth curling with suspicion, amusement, and contempt. Valjean drops his eyes.

“Right, then,” says Rosier. “Let’s bring him in.”

“I don’t understand,” mutters Anton, or Gaspard. This remark goes ignored.

One of the other guards climbs up into the cart, accompanied by the familiar clinking of chains. As he claps an iron cuff around the first of Valjean’s wrists, he pauses. Curious, Valjean glances up at him. The guard lifts one eyebrow and points at Valjean’s raw, bruised knuckles. “Resisted capture, did we?”

Without thinking, Valjean’s eyes go to Javert. 

But Javert does not seem to be paying any of them attention; he stares intently down at nothing, his gaze darting back back and forth rapidly, as if caught in some storm.

Once Valjean’s hands and feet are shackled, another guard cuts the ropes that bind him, and together they guide him roughly, down from the wagon, onto the ground, holding him tight under each arm.

“Right, then,” says Rosier again. “I will wait here and see that our man gets to the infirmary.” He turns to Anton, Gaspard, and Marie with a tight smile. ”Then we will get all this sorted out.”

A cudgel jabs Valjean from behind, between the shoulder blades, and he starts forward, unresisting as they march him through the prison gates. He does not turn back to look at Javert. Javert will not help him. Whatever fate lies before him now, he must face it alone.

\--

They leave him in a temporary holding cell, one leg chained to a hook in the wall. He hears the door shut, and the guards’ footsteps retreat, and then he can hear nothing but his own stuttering breath.

Another cage, another interminable stretch of waiting and wondering. 

Are they going to kill him? How long will they keep him here before they decide? 

There is a window in his cell, small, deep-set and high from the ground, so that he cannot see anything through it, but it lets in a ray of sunlight. Valjean sits with his back against the wall and watches this beam of light, for hours, as it makes its way slowly across the cell, growing longer, thinner, and finally disappearing.

Was it only days ago that he was lying free under the stars, listening to the river, content and warm by a fire, by a lover? It does not seem real.

And that is, of course, because it was not real—Javert was never a lover. But Valjean was drunk on the taste of freedom, and that drunkenness let him entertain such wild lies. He knew all along that it would not last, that it was stolen time only. What else could a thief expect?

In the evening, a guard comes in and sets a bowl of food down within Valjean’s reach. The man leaves without a word. No verdict yet, then. Javert has not yet given his testimony. 

He hears Javert’s voice in his head say, _It has nothing to do with me or you._

Valjean glances down at the bowl—bean soup. He kicks it away. It hits the opposite wall with a clatter, spilling onto the floor.

Why did he save Javert’s life? It was not, he decides, for Javert’s sake, but for his own. He did not hope that Javert would repay him, but only had to prove to himself that he is still a man, and that whatever else he might be, he is not a murderer. 

Perhaps, even despite Valjean’s efforts, Javert will not survive. 

The thought brings Valjean no comfort. It brings, instead, a flood of images, of memories: the shy, fleeting smiles Javert gave him now and then, and the look on his face that day in the rain, when they argued, the regret, the unmistakable anguish.

 _Damn Javert._ Valjean does not want to think of him any more. It is pathetic, he thinks, that a handful of kind words and a few hours of intimacy with a young man—a heartless and prideful young man, even—could have so much sway over him. He would never have guessed it of himself, before. If these are indeed his last days, he refuses to waste his thoughts on something so foolish and empty.

But he cannot stop thinking, and he is too agitated to sleep. At a loss, he turns to calisthenics, hoping to lose himself in the rhythm of the movements, and the single-mindedness that comes with throwing himself into a physical task. Eventually, after what must be hours, he reaches a state of exhaustion blessedly near to mindlessness. He lies down on the cold stone floor, and sleeps.

It is another three days—he counts them by the traversals of the sunbeam across his cell—before anyone speaks to him. It is morning and Valjean is lying on his side, trying not to be awake, when the door opens.

“Prisoner 24,601.” Valjean looks up at the guard framed in the doorway. There is no bowl of food with him. “On your feet,” he barks. Valjean gets up. The guard comes forward and unchains him from the wall. "Come with me."

Is this it? Is this his final day?

Valjean is led from his cell and through the dungeon corridors, the heavy chain at his leg trailing behind, out through the main doors and into the yard, where the sun is shining overhead in brilliant indifference. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I'm sorry about everything.)
> 
> (I can't believe this fic isn't over yet.)


End file.
